Bicycling Adventures: The first real day in the Alps

I woke early today with my alarm at 7, a little anxious for what was ahead. First though I needed a good breakfast and the Splendid Hotel had a good one with good coffee, corn flakes, granola, fruit, toast and cold milk (a rare item in French cuisine).

Now as an aside ..... my family and many of my close friends know of my interest, some might say my fascination or obsession with the Dalai Lama and Buddhist philosophy. And for the past 8 or so years of my goal to meditate daily.

So then, on probably the most anticipated day so far on the trip, who do I run into at the breakfast buffet .....

No not the Dalai Lama himself but 2 Buddhist monks from Tibet. They were on a month long tour of various ashrams in Europe and were visiting a major Buddhist center near the Splendid Hotel in Grenoble.

We had a long and naturally very deep conversation at breakfast. One of them spoke excellent English but the other older guy asked all of the questions and as with many wanted to know all about America. He was especially elated to hear how people in America have "free Tibet" bumper stickers. I was fascinated!!!!!

After that it was hard for the day to get any better, but it did.

I left the city and followed the river up. I couldn't resist and left the valley a little before noon for a modest climb off the main road and a descent into Vizille.

At this point the valley was wide enough for some agriculture, but the mountains in the distance were ever present.

...... with the peaks covered with some morning clouds left over from yesterday's storm.

As I went up the valley it got more and more narrow. I really didn't need my map today because there was clearly only one way to go.

Sometimes the path was very narrow, with barely room for the river and the road, with the train opting for a tunnel. But sometimes it broadened out a bit with room for a small village.

In one village I stopped for water and threw a football around with some kids. The boys loved American baseball and actually had football. It was amazing how unskilled they were with a football and while I am no great football talent myself I do have the basic skills and they were amazed and thrilled to see an old guy who could throw, catch and go deep for a long TD pass.

Naturally one guy, the bashful one had a t-shirt that said New York.

As usual word spread about the strange American in town and before you knew it there was a crowd and of course a photo with my iPad, as always an item of curiosity.

After this as I moved up the valley there was a big dam built in the 1980's that was too ugly to photograph, and then back to some of the most incredible scenery I have seen.

Here beside the mountain was probably a limestone processing plant with some nice bolted tanks. I should have stopped so that I could write the day off for business.

The afternoon began to get late and so far I hadn't been able to line up a room. I stopped in at a local Tourist office in a very hip upscale resort town on the lake near the dam and all they would do is recommend fancy places in their town.

I really wanted to climb more, split up what I saw to be a big climb and get further up so that the next day I could make it over the top. It was about 3:30 so i had some time and energy and I met a guy who told me about a place to stay another 20 miles and 500 meters vertical (I think that is about 1500 feet) which I thought I could do and I set off.

...... and I climbed ...... and climbed .... and climbed.

It even stared to get cool and at one point when I passed a stream gushing down it was cold.

I passed a few turn offs to some of the famous Tour de France mountain stage climbs like Alp-d'Huez and Vaujany which are huge dead end climbs to isolated mountain ski villages. These I wisely didn't attempt. As I climbed what I thought felt like much more than 1500 feet or half of Greylock I decided I had better recheck my meters to feet conversion.

Finally when I had started to get worried I came to a the small village of Le Rivier d'Allemond and a small and empty hotel.

They had food and a bed though not lavish, very welcomed.

The lady Isabel who owned and ran the place was partly Spanish and even served a salad like I had enjoyed in Spain along with a nice steak and potatoes with catsup.

I had a nice dinner and went to bed early apprehensive for crossing a high mountain pass tomorrow that was one of, I think 2 I needed to cross to get to Italy.

Total for the day was only about 50 miles but about 1500 meters vertical.

The view from my window last night.